What Is the MSAR, and Is It Worth Buying?

The AAMC Store describes the MSAR as covering "all MD-granting, LCME-accredited medical schools in the U.S. and Canada." That's 166 MD programs in the 2027 edition, as MedEdits counted when it tallied the database's course requirements. Each school reports its own numbers, and the AAMC collects them into one profile per school.

The data comes out once a year. According to the AAMC's MSAR FAQ, the new edition is published "in the spring of each year, typically in April," and current subscribers get it automatically as soon as it's out.

DO schools aren't in it, as the 2-year subscription page notes. For those, AACOM runs the Choose DO Explorer, which has a profile for each osteopathic college with its admissions criteria, minimum requirements, class size and deadlines. International Medical Aid reports that it's free once you enter your name and email.

The AAMC sells two versions:

Both are for individual use only and are non-transferable and non-refundable, according to the store pages. Older guides quote $28 and $36, so if a blog post gives you a lower price, it's out of date.

If there's any chance you'll reapply, the 2-year plan covers a second cycle for $8 more. Here's how the MSAR compares with the fees around it.

The 2027 AMCAS fee is $180 for your first school and $48 for each one after it. Secondaries add more: in the AAMC's 2027 Secondary Application Policies report, US schools charge $30 to $200, and $100 is the most common fee, used by 50 schools. Picking one school that wasn't a good fit costs you $148 in AMCAS and secondary fees at those common prices, more than four times the subscription.

Basic profiles are free. Without a subscription, you can see general facts such as the degrees a school offers, its application deadline, the size of its first-year class and its tuition, as Shemmassian Consulting and MedEdits describe the free tier.

The subscription adds the numbers you build a list from. The AAMC Store lists:

• Applicant data: MCAT^® scores and overall and science GPAs for accepted and enrolled students.
• Experiences of accepted applicants: what the people who got in did before applying.
• Waitlist data, where schools share it.
• Required and recommended coursework.
• Research opportunities and combined degree programs, including MD/PhD.
• Key dates, tuition and financial aid detail.
• Comparison and saving tools, so you can rank schools and keep notes.

The 2-year page adds first-year class demographics and four years of data per school. Shemmassian's walkthrough says the score data includes the median plus the 10th to 90th and 25th to 75th percentile ranges, and that you can compare 2 to 10 schools side by side.

Some of it. Most schools post a median MCAT^® and GPA on their own admissions pages, and the AAMC publishes its FACTS tables for free. FACTS Table A-1 lists applications and matriculants for every MD school by state of legal residence, which tells you how many in-state and out-of-state students each school enrolled.

What the free sources don't give you is one consistent format. School websites can report different statistics (a mean at one, a median at another), update on their own schedules and often don't show the 10th to 90th percentile spread. Pulling that together for 25 schools takes hours, and the result still won't include prerequisites, waitlist numbers or applicant experiences in one table. The subscription is mostly a time saver, and at $33 it's a cheap one.

A subscription is only as useful as what you do with it. Work through it in this order.

1. Filter by residency first. The MSAR lets you filter by residency and compare MCAT^® and GPA data by applicant type. MedEdits suggests that if a school's out-of-state share stays below 20 percent year after year, applying as a non-resident is hard to justify.
2. Compare your score with the range, not only the median. A median tells you where the middle admit scored. The 10th to 90th range tells you how far below it people still got in. The good MCAT score breakdown has a rule of thumb: a school whose median is within two points of your score is a realistic target, and one five or more points above it is a reach.
3. Work out the acceptance rate yourself. MedEdits notes that the MSAR doesn't show acceptance rates directly. You can estimate one by dividing matriculants by applicants. For a made-up example, a school with 8,000 applicants and 160 matriculants enrolls 2 percent of the people who apply.
4. Check prerequisites before you add a school. Of the 166 programs, 38 list no required courses at all, while others have specific rules about AP credit or labs. The premed requirements guide covers what most schools expect.
5. Read the mission and experience data last. Once the numbers narrow your list, the mission statement and the experiences of accepted applicants tell you whether your background fits what the school says it values.

Run your numbers against a few real profiles too. The 3.5 GPA and 510 MCAT breakdown shows how one score and GPA pairing played out across MD admissions.

Buy it in the spring of the year you apply, close to when the April edition comes out. A subscription you buy earlier still updates to the new edition, but buying a year early just uses up months you might need later.

If you're applying for fee assistance, wait for the decision first. The AAMC's FAQ says complimentary subscriptions for fee assistance recipients are "valid through the end of the year following qualification," so an award approved in early 2027 covers you through December 31, 2028. Paying $33 and then getting approved a week later is money you won't get back, since the subscription is non-refundable.

• DO-only applicants. The MSAR has no osteopathic schools. Use the Choose DO Explorer instead, and the MD vs DO breakdown can help you decide whether both belong on your list.
• Fee assistance recipients. You already have it.
• Anyone more than a year out. If you haven't taken the MCAT^® yet, the score you'll compare against doesn't exist. School websites and the free profiles are enough to get a feel for what's out there.

For everyone else applying MD, it's one of the cheapest line items in the cycle, and it can stop you from paying $148 or more for an application to a school that was never going to fit. When you have your score, the PurpleCAT MCAT score guide shows its percentile, so you can check where you stand against the ranges in each profile.

Last verified October 30, 2026, against the AAMC Store's MSAR subscription pages, the AAMC's MSAR FAQ and the 2027 AMCAS fee schedule. Prices and data change each cycle; check the AAMC Store before you buy.